Publications

When the music stops

Since 2012, Mali has faced significant instability, increasing episodes of violence and ongoing tensions generated by separate but interlinked issues, including scarcity of resources, longstanding intercommunal tensions, poor governance and weak provision of services. In such a context, various armed and terrorist groups have established their presence in Mali, initially in the north of the country but with a clear shift towards the centre and the south in recent years. The institutional fragility, increased availability of weapons, effects of climate change on a traditional pastoral and agricultural economy, porousness of borders, and existing forms of informal trade have facilitated dangerous collaboration between terrorist and organised crime groups. Their presence has progressively exa...

Many hands on an elephant.- November 2020

Download the French version   FOREWORD by Henrike Trautmann, Acting Director for the Neighbourhood South, DG NEAR, European Commission and Antonia Marie De Meo, Director of UNICRI                                                                                     "Violent extremism remains a persistent threat to peace and stability in the Sahel and Maghreb regions. It continues to cause death, injury and the destruction of property, disrupting the lives of ordinary citizens in the process. Nearly 6,000 people have lost their lives in ongoing con...

Algorithms and Terrorism: The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence for Terrorist Purposes

A Joint Report by UNICRI and UNCCT New technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) in particular, can be extremely powerful tools, enabling big advances in medicine, information and communication technologies, marketing, transportation among many other research fields. However, they can also be used for malicious purposes when falling into the wrong hands. The scope of this report - Algorithms and Terrorism: The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence for Terrorist Purposes - is to contribute to understanding the potential risk of AI falling into the hands of terrorists. Although terrorist organizations have, to a certain degree, traditionally tended to employ various forms of “low-tech terrorism” such as firearms, blades and vehicles, terrorism itself is not a...

Policy Toolkit on The Hague Good Practices on the Nexus between Transnational Organized Crime and Terrorism - March 2019

The Policy Toolkit developed by UNICRI was launched by the Netherlands at the Fifteenth Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) Coordinating Committee in Malaga on 13-14 March 2019.The Toolkit was recently presented during the Joint special meeting on the nexus between international terrorism and organized crime held on 26 April 2019 by the United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC), the ISIL (Da’esh)/Al-Qaida Committee, and the Taliban Committee.The Toolkit aims at operationalizing the GCTF The Hague Good Practices on the Nexus between Transnational Organized Crime and Terrorism by providing local practitioners, policymakers and other governmental experts with a practical tool for the use and implementation of the Good Practices to address the challenge of the Nexus in...

Artificial Intelligence Collection - August 2020

The potential of the Artificial Intelligence for law enforcement, legal professionals, the court system and even the penal system to augment human capabilities is enormous. However, we need to truly test the limits of our creativity and innovation to overcome the challenges that come with these technologies, as well as to develop entirely new approaches, standards and metrics that will be necessitated by them. In this regard, contained within the pages of this UNICRI Special Collection on Artificial Intelligence, are a selection of articles from innovative minds in academia to stimulate discussion and promote solutions to the challenges we face in this emerging domain on how to shape the design of the policies and legal frameworks of the future and provide guidance to those who will bu...

Evaluation of a pilot project on countering violent extremism in the regions of Maghreb and Sahel - Preliminary Findings - September 2019

In order to identify the root causes of radicalisation and violent extremism, and establish what kind of interventions are more effective in building the resilience of a community towards the appeal of resolving grievances by violent means, UNICRI launched a comprehensive multi-year effort in nine countries of the regions of Maghreb and Sahel in 2015. Following an intensive period of implementation, UNICRI has initiated an evaluation of the projects implemented by 83 organisations in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger and Tunisia. UNICRI’s role in these projects has been to gather and organise data; evaluate the interventions’ relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, prospects for sustainability, visibility and encountered challenges; as well as identify e...

COVID-19: The day we discovered our fragility and our strength - New issue of the Magazine Freedom From Fear (F3) - October 2020

“This issue of the Magazine Freedom From Fear (F3) The day we discovered our fragility and our strength addresses the collateral effects of COVID-19 impacting criminal justice, namely, the growing influence of organized crime and terrorism and the rise of violence against and exploitation of women and children. I wish to commend all the authors and the Ghent University for exhibiting their commitment to research and innovation during these challenging times. The COVID-19 virus knows no boundaries. It is laying bare weaknesses and vulnerabilities in even the most powerful countries and the richest families, while the vulnerable among us suffer the most. Nothing is remote anymore. We are all connected: our economies, our security, our health, and our futures. The achievement of ...

Stop the virus of disinformation: the malicious use of social media by terrorist, violent extremist and criminal groups during the COVID-19 pandemic - November 2020  

Risks and technology options  The Report describes how terrorist, violent extremist and organized criminal groups are trying to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to expand their activities and jeopardize the efficacy and credibility of response measures by governments.  The COVID-19 crisis has amplified misinformation and disinformation on social media and has created new opportunities for violent non-state actors.   In recent months UNICRI has detected an exponential increase of malicious use of social media to undermine trust in governments and, at the same time, to reinforce extremist narratives, recruitment strategies and control of the territory by criminal groups.   Terrorist, violent extremist and organized criminal groups have su...

Towards Responsible Artificial Intelligence Innovation - July 2020

This report on Artificial Intelligence (AI) for law enforcement is the most recent product of the collaboration on AI between the Innovation Centre of the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) and UNICRI's Centre for AI and Robotics. Together we have created a unique forum for law enforcement to discuss advancements in AI, as well as the impacts of using this technology to fight crime.Lawfulness, social acceptance, trustworthiness, responsibility and ethics are important concepts that readers will find regularly repeated throughout this report. Indeed, while there is great potential in AI, the use of this technology by law enforcement also raises very real and serious human rights concerns that can be extremely damaging and undermine the trust of communities. Human rights, ...